Build a playground, raise a champion

For many of us, the playground was whatever available space we had to play. In the city it was parking spaces before the adults came back home and roads when cars weren’t passing. In rural areas, it was the entire observable world. At school, it was a field where if you were lucky you got to play freely until the break ended.

For many of us too, the playground got smaller and smaller with each school holiday. Grass became concrete and fields became asphalt. We ran out of playgrounds and so we ran out of play time.

And now you find yourself complaining about the amount of time the children spend playing video games or watching TV. And if they do play outside, you worry about how far they have to go to find a field big enough to play football. Some parents and teachers worry that children are too introverted and they cannot relate to others as well as they should. Spaces to play would solve all these issues which begs the question, how do we play again?

Join a club

Football, volleyball, basketball, swimming, netball… It does not matter. Finding a club that allows children to join teams, train, and compete against each other is a great way to get your child to play and enjoy it. They get to socialize outside of a school setting and learn important lessons about teamwork and healthy competition.

Don’t have one of these close by? Talk to your neighbours and start one of your own. Ask the local school or owner of a nearby empty field for permission. It only takes a couple of calls and a few knocks on some doors and perhaps an announcement at a PTA meeting. Small price for the developmental growth of your child. You never know, you might make some new friends of your own!

You can organize tournaments with other clubs or join already existing tournaments such as the Chapa Dimba na Safaricom. This will mean meeting even more children and creating greater opportunities for children to hone their talents. For the chapa dimba na Safaricom, participating teams will even have their fields revamped by the sponsor.

Creating spaces for play is vital for children. It means that children - and the neighbourhood as a whole will be safer and that the next generation will have the same or even better inter-personal skills as the previous generations.